Whoever said, “words mean nothing” has obviously never been with the right person. Words can mean so much. The truth is that words can change the course of anyone’s day (or even life) if said with the appropriate emotion. For example; you are motivated to change your entire life by hearing what a motivational speaker has to say. It is in fact, the emotion with which he speaks which encourages you to change yourself. Similarly, when you use a quote or a phrase, you can change your partner’s day. You can never go wrong with a quote. They can come in all sizes and the topic of this article is specifically the shorter ones which are more preferred for a number of reasons, with the primary one being: They don’t need much thought. Let’s face it, not many people are as ‘romantic’ as they show in the movies. People don’t always go on dates and not everyone can take their partner on a surprise with a trip to Paris. Sometimes all we have to display the affection are words. A short quote doesn’t require much thought in the sense that you can literally look at your partner once and immediately come up with something sweet and thoughtful to say. Compare their eyes to something they like or someone such as a celebrity or someone they look up to. It’s only fair to warn all the non-romantics right now that the cardinal sin of a relationship is comparing them to someone you think are beautiful not them.
Now even if we talk about communication, weather it is business related or normal day to day conversations. You want your speech to be concise and to the point to make it more effective. For instance, you are supposed to give a presentation about your project in your university, or about some product in your company or whatever, now you definitely don’t want to go on talking for an hour and the audience to get bored of you yet you want to convey your whole message efficiently. Hence, brevity is the way to go. Pick such words and phrases that describe what you are trying to explain but don’t take much time. Using shorter quotes in your speech will help in this regard, people won’t go in deep thoughts thinking about the meaning of the quote and will get your message clearly and easily.
Short Quotes are the way to GO!
At this point you might have realized two things: 1- It’s the easiest trick in the book. 2- There are a few do’s and don’ts. I’m aware of the fact that these two statements might contradict each other but the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to short quotes. It’s been a long day for your partner and they seem tired or frustrated. These are one of the many situations where your partner is hoping for you to ‘make their day’. This is also the right time for you to use a short quote. Now, a quote doesn’t have to be something previously said by someone else. In fact, it is the complete opposite. Creativity is key and honestly it doesn’t matter what level of creative you are because even a guy who can’t make a macaroni necklace can come up with a short quote. We have a situation and now all we have to do is come up with a quote to change the situation. Think according to your partner’s preference and what you know they like. Often we think that the best thing to do is to tell them how their insecurities are beautiful in our eyes. While I applaud people who do that, people need to realize that those are sensitive topics and you can’t make your partner feel like you’re ‘just saying it’. When they expect you to cheer them up then you can be romantic or cheesy or even funny. Whatever way you opt for, just remember to speak with love. You’re probably wondering what cliché is ‘speaking with love’. However, as I’ve mentioned earlier, it’s the emotion with which you speak that counts. Words and emotion go hand in hand and one cannot perform its function without the other. You can’t be insensitive but expect them to smile about it or say I love you with in an uninterested tone and hope that they’ll kiss you for being so ‘romantic’.
Benefits of using Short Quotes
Brevity is considered to be one of the most important aspect in effective communication. People can handle a limited number of thoughts without a moment’s delay, so make the most of them. Short quotes are not only good in communicating, they are also effective in writing. Usually people ditch those articles that are longer, using a concise tone in articles can be good for you and your readers.
A few benefits of utilizing short quotes are as follows:
- We Increase Information Volume
According to research, humans can hold up to seven numbers in their memory. Using exact information to explain something is better than trying to write thousands of words.
For instance, what is easier to understand?
“A is the sum of three times b and two times c” or “A = 3b + 2c”
You don’t want people to get all tangled in thoughts and taking hours trying to figure out something that can be explained in just a few minutes.
- We make it Easy for our audience
As it was stated earlier, explaining anything to a group of people can be easy and difficult, it all depends on you actually. You can make it easy for them by using the correct and exact words, or the opposite for them by going in too much irrelevant detail.
Same is the case with a writer and his or her readers. There are millions of books on the same subject, for example an engineering subject “Power Plants”, now there are more than 50 books and all of them are teaching the same thing. But why does a teacher suggest only one or two particular books to their students. It is because that one (or two) book is “simple to understand”. The words used in that book make it easier for the student to understand the topic.
- We convey raw ideas
Writing about anything, be it a novel or a textbook or even an article, is not basically just about the words. It is actually about how you convey your message or idea to others. It is simple, the writer has an idea in his head, he writes, people read, the idea goes into the heads of the readers.
Now again, we go back to the concept of brevity. If the writer has used the right words and is giving relevant knowledge, it will be easier for him or her to convey his or her idea to the people. We will hear the author’s voice instead of our own trying to decode what’s written. This whole concept of conveying raw ideas is not only applicable in writings, but is utilized in other fields like art and programming as well.
- Quotes that are easy to understand!
Most of the people love reading and using quotes in their everyday life. The reason behind our love for quotes is that they are refined thoughts. Best quotes can help us understand the meaning quickly and easily without getting all confused with the big words. Short quotes prove to be more influential than the longer ones. They are mostly one liners, but they are so much stronger than the longer ones. They say that a sentence should not have irrelevant words and a para should not have any stuffing of sentences. The whole article loses its charm. Now this all doesn’t really mean that the writer should make all of his sentences shorter and not provide any detail at all. This just means that one should make every word count.
- Titles and Headings
This is pretty much self-explanatory. Using short titles and headings are always preferred for articles, books and etc. For example, if you read a title that says “Top ten items” and another title that says “Here are some of the ten best items that we have selected for you”, now both basically point towards the same direction but the shorter one is more attractive. Using short quotes as headings and titles can be great as those few words, very efficiently, give the readers all they want to know about the article they are going to read.
- Concise Ideas Require Less Effort
To explain this point I will give the example of the best athletes and artists. Now what a professional and talented footballer would do is not just run around the whole ground and waste his stamina, instead he will stick to his position on the field and run accordingly. The advantage of doing so is that he will waste less and will be able to do more with the same amount of time. Similarly concise ideas are the ones that take very less effort and time to understand. By using short quotes in your writings can help the readers understand your message quickly and conveniently.
- Successful Speechmaking
Most of the leaders around the world take less than an hour to announce something or give a speech. As it was stated earlier, you don’t want people to get bored and not understand what you are trying to say. Use of short quotes and sticking to the point helps in conveying the meaning more easily. A very famous philosopher once said that he would prefer to use only 10 sentences to explain something that others will explain in a whole book.
- Win the Arguments and Defend Your Product
Mostly what people do when they get involved in an argument is that they start to talk and they go on and on and on… Now usually, this does not really end well for you as the other party is not even listening for the most part. So if you want to convince something to anyone during an argument, instead of fighting and talking and talking and talking, you can sit them down, keep calm, be concise and concentrate on the outcome.
Weather it is an argument or for example, an FAQ session at the end of your presentation or speech, to defend something that you are offering or any statement you made in your presentation or speech, you must use short sentences and focus on the point. Using powerful yet shorter words will help you.
Sources of Short Quotes
The best thing about quotes is that they can be effortlessly discovered anywhere. They don’t particularly belong to any specific nation or religion or anything of that sorts. You can read them at whatever point you need on the internet pretty easily. There are a lot of different websites on the internet where you can easily find quotes about any topic you want. You just have to write the keyword, and the website will do the rest for you. Short quotes about topics like inspiration and motivation, romantic, courage and etc. can be found in different books, novel, articles and even in newspapers. You must have come across a beautiful short quote written on the entrance of a museum or a university.
In Conclusion
To summarize this all up, I will use only word and that is, “Brevity”.
See that’s how you can use just a few words and give your message to your readers more effectively. Being concise, not providing too much irrelevant detail and sticking to the point is what makes your speech and writings more effective and influential. One does not need a thousand words to make their loved ones’ day better, simply use short quotes, you can just compliment by saying how lovely they look and it will put a smile on their face. One does not need a thousand words to explain an idea to the readers, you use the right words and the right amount of words, and they won’t require much effort to get the idea.
